Bulandshahr, a town in the western Uttar Pradesh’s sugarcane belt, witnessed clashes between Hindutva activists and the state police on December 3.

The activists allegedly found carcasses of cows strewn across farms in Mahav village near Bulandshahr.

The clash began as a mere skirmish at around 11 am when the activists carried the remains of the dead cow to the nearby police sub-station in Chingravathi village. They wanted the police to file an FIR against the alleged cow slaughter.

However, the situation soon escalated into mob violence when miscreants in the crowd started attacking the police personnel with stones and firearms.

By this time, some other policemen had already come from the bigger police station in Shyana village to control the mob.

In the violence that followed after noon, an inspector-rank police officer, Subodh Kumar Singh succumbed to his bullet injury, the post-mortem report confirmed.

Singh was also part of the team that probed the 2015 Mohammad Akhlaq’s lynching in Dadri, UP.

The mob set the chowki on fire. And many other police vehicles were also torched.

Meanwhile, a few Hindu-right groups also blocked the highway passing through the Chingravati village.

While at least four other policemen were reportedly hurt, 21-year-old Sumit also died in the violence.

Many in the area said Sumit was a BJP activist, but some reports claimed that the police believed he was only a bystander who got caught in the violence.

Incidentally, the uproar over cow slaughter has occurred at a time when lakhs of Muslims across India have gathered in Bulandshahr for Tablighi Jamaat’s Ijtema (religious gathering).

The attack on police happened around 30 kilometres away from the site of the ijtema that ended on December 3 peacefully.

By evening, the UP government deployed security forces in and around the town. Top police officials are camping in Bulandshahr to prevent any further aggravation of the incident.

The police claimed that the situation is under control but appealed to the public to desist from spreading inflammatory rumours floating around on social media.

Two FIRs have been filed. One related to the alleged cow slaughter, and the other, against more than 100 people who attacked the police at the Chingravathi chowki.

A Special Investigation Team has been constituted to probe the matter. The police, meanwhile, arrested two people and detained four others in connection with the violence.